Deerhurst - St Mary's Priory Church

Much of St Mary's Priory Church is Anglo-Saxon. It was built in the 8th century, when Deerhurst was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. In 804 St Mary's was part of a Benedictine monastery. In about 1060 King Edward the Confessor granted the monastery to the Abbey of St Denis in France, making it an alien priory. In 1250 Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall stayed at St Denis and bought the priory from the abbot. He took over the priory, dispersed the monks and planned to build a castle at Deerhurst. However, the purchase was reversed and by 1264 St Denis abbey again possessed the priory.

During the war in the 14th century King Edward III seized alien priories in England in 1337, so that their incomes went to him instead of their mother houses in France. By 1400 King Henry IV had restored the priory to the Abbey of St Denis. But King Henry VI seized the priory in 1443. In 1461 Edward of York deposed the Lancastrian Henry VI and was crowned King Edward IV. He granted the priory to Tewkesbury Abbey, on condition that the abbot maintain a prior and four monks at Deerhurst.

Tewkesbury Abbey and its priories were suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Deerhurst Priory and all of its estates were surrendered to the Crown in 1540.
The church was restored and altered in the 10th century after the Viking invasion of England. It was enlarged early in the 13th century and altered in the 14th and 15th centuries.

A Saxon baptismal font from the 9th century, carved from a single block of limestone. It was thrown away in 1653 and rediscovered in 1843 on a local farm, where it was used as a cattle trough. The base was found 26 years later in an inn.